Once again, happy 25th anniversary for the Taiko no Tatsujin series! For such an occasion, here's another of the songs that was featured in the very first entry of the series.
HOTEL PACIFIC
| Game | Genre |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiko 1 | J-POP ( ) | - | ★4 247 | - | - | - |
hotel (HOTEL PACIFIC)For as much as Taiko no Tatsujin gaming has been a thing for a quarter of a century by now, there might have been some assuptions across the years among fans about the fear of certain trends pertaining licensed picks seemingly being a factor more related to modern times, things like the release of music from commercials or tunes that could only be slotted for one game alone. Well, at least for those two cases being provided, here's proof on how most of these traits have stuck since the franchise's very beginning!
HOTEL PACIFIC was the 45th single release from the 1975 J-Pop/rock band Southern All Stars (サザンオールスターズ), arguably one of Japan's most influential rock bands to date. Originally sprung from the activities of Aoyama Gakuin University's school music club Better Days in the prior year, its lineup consists of lead vocals/guitarist Keisuke Kuwata, vocals/keyboardist Yuko Hara, bassist Kazuyuki Sekiguchi and percussionists Hiroshi Matsuda and Hideyuki Nozawa, with a 2nd guitars performer in Takashi Omori who left the band in 2001. The name comes from a friend of Kuwata as a fusion of the Southern Rock music genre name and the name of New York's Fania All-Stars band from the 60ies. Since the band's debut in 1978 under the Victor Entertainment agency, Southern All Stars has garnered a number of accolades prior to other acts of the country in the best-selling albums department, some of these unmatched to this day like being the band with the most songs being listed in Oricon's Top 100 weekly single charts at the same time (with 44 songs, at that!!)
Rather than starting with some of their greatest hits for Taiko no Tatsujin's grand debut, the chosen HOTEL PACIFIC was not even one year old at the time (a July 19th, 2000 release) and was used at the times for satellite broadcasting company WOWOW's commercials for the Summer Campaign broadcasting. Souther All Stars's first single release via Maxi Single in tandem with another medley composition, this song was produced specifically to liven up the 2000 live concert in the Kanagawa prefecture's Chigasaki, Keisuke Kuwata's home town. Perhaps such a choice location for its debut lead to a troubled production with many retouches done by the same vocalist, to the point that the completed arrangement was only unveiled at the day of said live concert. The title of this work is taken from a hotel of the same name in Chigasaki, in activity from 1965 to 1988 and also paid homage to with the song's music video filmed in the Kannonzaki Keikyu hotel, in Yokosuka. Despite not hitting the Oricon weekly charts peak by a short margin (2nd best placed), HOTEL PACIFIC was notorious for being the band's first song with a full-scale dance, incorporated both for the live performance and its later-released music video.
Charted by Sasaoka (ササオカ), one of the long-standing Taiko series contributors still in activity, the core sentiment of following the song's base percussions shines through even with only one available difficulty to be charted, sparing space for only one drumroll. And it's not like later playable SAS songs have had any better luck, either; despite having full-charted sets, the later-released Katte ni Simbad was only playable in the 4th arcade and Erotica Seven from the 3rd arcade generation was exclusive to the Kanjani Eight studios' Taiko cabs around said variety's availablility on the network!
